Hyewon Yum’s Mom, It’s My First Day of Kindergarten! turns the usual first-day-of-school anxiety story on its head. Breezy illustrations depict a confident young boy and his worried-looking mother. He’s eager to go to school (“I have my crayons and markers…I’m all set!”), but Mom is less sure. Youngsters will giggle when she asks, “Will you be okay…you’re still so little?” — the illustration shows a big, robust boy and his tiny mom, feet dangling as he pulls her behind him. Kids will get right away that the roles are reversed — and that this is mightily amusing. (Foster/Farrar, 4–6 years)

Zog, star of Julia Donaldson’s A Gold Star for Zog, may be in dragon school, but it feels more like the School of Hard Knocks when he crashes into a tree during flying practice. Fortunately, a girl in the field where he lands offers him a Band-Aid. As the years go by, she faithfully helps out — and finally gives him the most useful gift of all: she reveals that she’s royalty just as Zog fears he’s about to fail his capture-a-princess test. Illustrated by Axel Scheffler, a multicolored, endearingly homely cast of cartoon dragons attends class in the woodland setting, where none of the other critters seem remotely afraid of the fire-breathers in their midst. (Levine/Scholastic, 4–6 years)

In Oh No! Not Again!: (Or How I Built a Time Machine to Save History) (Or at Least My History Grade), author Mac Barnett and illustrator Dan Santat reunite with a companion to Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World). After missing a question on her history test, our bespectacled heroine builds a time machine that brings her back to 33,000 BCE. While she is changing history by painting caves in Belgium, two cave dudes steal the machine and do a little history-changing of their own. Bright digital illustrations with lots of graphic elements play up the considerable humor, and many light touches will allow young readers in on the joke. (Disney-Hyperion, 5–8 years)

What will the next school year be like? Who will be in my class? Will I like my new teacher? In Pearl and Wagner: Five Days Till Summer author Kate McMullan perfectly captures such common insecurities when Pearl gets a glimpse of her future teacher, Ms. Bean, and imagines the worst. (Fortunately, her fears turn out to be unfounded.) R. W. Alley’s engaging illustrations capture the myriad expressions on all the characters’ faces, and McMullan’s text begins to bridge that territory between easy readers and chapter books. (Penguin, 5–8 years)

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This is not about my own school. I prefer to forget that. This is about how a large part of the job description when you write for children is the remorseless visiting of schools. When I was young and strong, I was required to do this almost once a week. Half of the time, the visit was entirely rewarding: the children, as always, were lovely; the staff, enthusiastic; and I could find the school entrance. Even when I lost my way (or, on one memorable occasion, when a silly old man jumped off the moving train and someone had to pull the emergency cord) and I arrived late, this kind of visit was always wonderful. On the occasion of the man jumping off the train, one of the boys actually gave me the idea for my book Howl’s Moving Castle.

These visits kept me going for the other half of the time, in which there was never any problem with the children, but the adults behaved atrociously. At the very least, the Headmaster would rush at me as I arrived, wring my hand in a crunching grip, and say, “I haven’t read any of your books, of course.” I was always too busy shaking my right hand and wondering when I’d recover the use of it to ask the obvious questions: “Why haven’t you? And why of course?” Headmistresses were less predictable. Here the common factor was that they regarded me as an intrusive nuisance and were liable to have arranged for the whole school to do something else. I would arrive at the school at the stated hour, having allowed time to hunt around the buildings for the way in, to be met by the School Secretary saying, “The Headmistress has them all in Maypole Dancing practice. Do you mind waiting an hour and a half?” It often took strong resolution not to simply turn around and go away.

The visit which caused me eventually to decide not to visit schools anymore was arranged as part of a citywide book festival. All schools in the city were supposed to participate. I was escorted to this particular school by two nice but nervous librarians in a small old car. As we chugged up the forecourt to the dark and forbidding school buildings, an obvious School Secretary came rushing toward us, holding out one hand to stop us. We stopped. “No Supply Teachers today,” she shouted. “We don’t need any extra staff. Go away!” Somewhat shaken by this welcome, we explained that we were not in fact spare teachers but an Author Visit arranged by the city. “Oh, then come in if you must,” she replied, “but the Deputy Head won’t be pleased.” The said Deputy Head, whom we encountered at the entrance, seemingly standing by to repel visitors, was indeed not pleased. She told us brusquely that we had better get ourselves to Room Eleven then. After some hunting about, we found this room. It was large, anemically lit, and full of empty desks. Scattered about at the desks were seven or so depressed-looking girls and boys. The skinny, angry-looking teacher in charge said to us, “The rest of the class have gone to a Latin lesson. You wouldn’t want them to miss their Latin, would you?” I suppressed a desire to tell him that, yes, I thought they might miss their Latin just this once, because the librarians by now both looked as if they might cry. Instead I sat where the man told me to and started to get on terms with the remaining children. After six or so minutes, we were beginning to loosen up and enjoy ourselves and the kids were starting to ask questions when the door burst open and the Deputy Head reappeared, energetically ringing a large brass bell. “Everybody out!” she shouted. “Children, go home. The rest of you go away. We’re on strike from this moment on!”

There was nothing to do but go. The librarians and I went and had coffee and stared at one another limply. Schools, I thought, would be fine if it wasn’t for the adults running them.

Diana Wynne Jones’s latest book is The House of Many Ways (Greenwillow).

From the September/October 2008 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

The post The Other Half appeared first on The Horn Book.

Bailey

The post Review of Bailey appeared first on The Horn Book.

PICTURE BOOKS
Suggested grade level for each entry: K–3

Miss Brooks Loves Books! (and I don’t) by Barbara Bottner, illus. by Michael Emberley (Knopf)
A first grader finds her librarian’s passion for books “vexing” and her classmates’ reading selections lacking. But when her mother brings out Shrek! she finally meets a book she can love. 32 pages.

Hornbooks and Inkwells written by Verla Kay, illus. by S.D. Schindler (Putnam)
Brief quatrains and lively, detailed illustrations evoke a mid-eighteenth-century one-room school. The school year passes with a sampling of lessons (written on birchbark) and recess (playing marbles, ice skating). 32 pages.

Follow the Line to School by Laura Lungkvist (Viking)
Trace a continuous line as it meanders through classrooms, cafeteria, and playground. The text’s direct questions (i.e., “What colors are the jump ropes?”) are easily answered by looking closely at the art. 32 pages.

The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School by Laura Murray, illus. by Mike Lowery (Putnam)
The Gingerbread Man springs out of the oven to find himself in an empty classroom. He journeys across the school to be reunited with the kids. Cartoon-panel illustrations imbue the cookie with personality. 32 pages.

The Little Red Pen by Janet Stevens Susan Stevens Crummel (Harcourt)
With a stack of papers to grade, Little Red Pen calls for help from her friends the stapler, scissors, etc.; their excuses mount up. After Little Red falls into the trash, though, the lazy office supplies rescue her. 56 pages.

Homework by Arthur Yorinks, illus. by Richard Egielski (Walker)
While Tony snoozes, his school supplies tackle his writing assignment; the problem is the abundance of desk-top know-it-alls. Expressive cartoons and spirited dialogue give each a personality befitting its function. 32 pages.

YOUNGER FICTION
Suggested grade level for each entry: 1–3

Where the Steps Were by Andrea Cheng (Boyds/Wordsong)
This novel in free verse traces growing relationships between students and their teacher over a year at an inner-city elementary school slated to be torn down. Eloquent woodcuts accompany the poems. 143 pages.

Princess Posey and the First Grade Parade by Stephanie Greene, illus. by Stephanie Roth Sisson (Putnam)
First-grade teacher Miss Lee compliments Posey on her tutu, which Posey’s mom won’t let her wear to school. The next day Miss Lee invites students to wear their favorite clothes to express their individuality. 83 pages.

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look, illus. by LeUyen Pham (Schwartz & Wade)
Fearful second-grader Alvin doesn’t speak in school, though his voice works everywhere else. There’s no miracle cure, but by story’s end he’s made a friend. 172 pages.

Fractions = Trouble! by Claudia Mills, illus. by G. Brian Karas (Farrar)
A new tutor manages to make learning fractions painless for apprehensive third-grader Wilson. Helpful math explanations are integrated into the readable narrative, enhanced by warmly humorous pencil sketches.  116 pages.

INTERMEDIATE FICTION
Suggested grade level for each entry: 4–6

How Tia Lola Learned to Teach by Julia Alvarez (Knopf)
Miguel and Juanita are adjusting to life in small-town Vermont without their father. Meanwhile, the principal asks Tía Lola to teach Spanish at school. Easy-to-understand Spanish phrases are sprinkled throughout.  135 pages.

What’s Bugging Bailey Blecker? by Gail Donovan (Dutton)
Fifth-grader Bailey, a Maine islander, must not only cope with going to a new school on the mainland but also with the ferocious itchiness on her head: lice. A solidly realistic school story with lots of humor. 197 pages.

We the Children by Andrew Clements, illus. by Adam Stower (Atheneum)
The school custodian presses a mysterious coin on sixth-grader Ben, then dies, leading Ben to investigate the plan to tear down his old school. 146 pages.

The Fabled Fifth Graders of Aesop Elementary School by Candace Fleming (Random/Schwartz & Wade)
Adventurer-turned-teacher Mr. Jupiter has agreed to stay on to teach the most dreaded students at Aesop Elementary. The escapade is told in connected short stories, each of which ends with a moral. 170 pages.

Big Nate: In a Class by Himself by Lincoln Peirce (HarperCollins/Harper)
Big Nate is convinced he’s destined for greatness—but he seems destined for trouble. Nate’s sarcastic-yet-optimistic voice and cartoons balance fast-paced hijinks and clever commentary on the monotony of school. 216 pages.

Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze by Alan Silberberg (Simon/Aladdin)
Milo is starting seventh grade at a new school. He’s also beginning to deal with his mother’s death a few years earlier; slipped in among droll descriptions of everyday life and wry cartoons are poignant memories. 273 pages.

Justin Case: School, Drool, and Other Daily Disasters by Rachel Vail, illus. by Matthew Cordell (Feiwel)
Justin shares his third-grade year in an illustrated diary of drop-dead funny observations. He reveals his endless worries but, predictably, third grade isn’t the disaster Justin imagines. 246 pages.

Rex Zero, the Great Pretender by Tim Wynne-Jones (Farrar)
Rex’s family moves (again)—just across town, but to a new school district. Rex pretends to go to his new school but shows up at his old one instead. This story of coping with growing up is told with intelligent humor. 215 pages.

The Detention Club by David Yoo (HarperCollins/Baltzer + Bray)
Peter finds his elementary-school antics won’t cut it in middle school. His schemes to regain his social standing (e.g., getting popular kids in trouble, then befriending them in detention) take a toll on his academics. 300 pages.

OLDER FICTION
Suggested grade level for each entry: 7 and up

Tales of the Madman Underground: (An Historical Romance 1973) by John Barnes (Viking)
Karl relates his efforts to be “normal” over the first six days of the school year; as his narrative meanders into flashbacks and reveals his participation in a high school therapy group, the difficulty becomes clear. 534 pages.

You by Charles Benoit (HarperTeen)
Tenth-grader Kyle is always on the verge of flunking out. School becomes a bit more interesting with the arrival of Zack, kicked out of private school, who helps Kyle when the jocks decide he needs a lesson. 223 pages.

Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O’Roark Dowell (Atheneum)
When Janie was little, she convinced her parents to start a goat farm. Now a ninth-grader, Janie narrates her eventful first year in high school in a sure, smart, and sarcastic voice. 211 pages.

Griff Carver, Hallway Patrol by Jim Krieg (Penguin/Razorbill)
Griffin Carver, new boy at Rampart Middle School, joins the hallway patrol and exposes a fake-hall-pass production ring in this hilarious parody of the hard-boiled detective genre. 226 pages.

POETRY
Suggested grade level listed with each entry

Messing Around on the Monkey Bars: And Other School Poems for Two Voices Betsy Franco, illus. by Jessie Hartland (Candlewick)
School poems for multiple voices, characterized by steady rhythms and humor, are presented in a clear, interactive format. Whimsical paintings (featuring a multi-ethnic cast of kids) add to the playfulness. Grade level: K-3. 48 pages.

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As a kid, I prided myself on being a good student. However, it wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school that I realized I wasn’t really being challenged in my classes, which were generally pretty basic. That year, I found myself in an advanced English course with a teacher who was a real stickler for quality. Until then, I’d skated easily through my English courses, and, not surprisingly, I never learned how to write with much skill. I didn’t know how I ended up in this advanced course: perhaps my counselor felt I had potential based on my older sister’s performance the previous year, or maybe I impressed my basic English teacher. Whatever the reason, I found myself confronted with an English teacher who would change my life.

The first assignment Ms. Visconti gave the class was to write an essay about something we’d read. No problem, I thought. I wrote my essay, and felt quite confident upon turning it in. The next day our essays were returned to us, and, sneaking peeks at grades written on the papers of my peers, I eagerly anticipated mine. To my chagrin, my paper was casually placed on my desk with only the words Not an essay written at the top. What?!? I was profoundly offended and embarrassed. I could have blown it off, or continued writing non-essays for the rest of the semester. But I enjoyed making good grades, and I certainly wanted one for this class. So I asked Ms. Visconti if she’d teach me how to write an essay, which she very kindly did. She thus prepared me for my college courses and, much later, my authorial debut, We Are the Ship.

Thank God for good teachers.

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Ramona the Pest
written by Beverly Cleary, illustrated by Lois Darling
192 pp. Morrow Review 8/68
Eight- or nine-year-olds who can look back upon their kindergarten days will smile knowingly at Ramona’s first encounters with school life. Ramona does not submit to the process of education without a struggle, and the skirmishes, vividly described, will remind the young reader of the child he once was (or wished he had dared to be!). The author has a sure instinct for the thought and expression of five-year-olds. Grade level: K–3.

First Day Jitters
by Julie Danneberg, illustrated by Judy Love
32 pp. Charlesbridge Review 10/00
In spite of Mr. Hartwell’s entreaties, Sarah Jane Hartwell does not want to start her first day in a new school. Like all newcomers, she worries about having to begin again and wonders if there will be nice children in her class. But the ending reveals that Sarah is not a new student — she’s the teacher! Lively line and watercolor illustrations bring Sarah’s plight to life. Grade level: K–3.

Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse
written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes
32 pp. Greenwillow Review 9/96
Enchanted with school, Lilly wants to be a teacher until one fateful Monday when she gets in trouble. She plots her revenge until her teacher’s final gesture, a thoughtful note and a packet of tasty snacks, makes her feel miserably small. With help, Lilly puts her world to rights in a sensitively crafted, dazzlingly logical conclusion. A skilled caricaturist, Henkes conveys variations in mood with economy and charm. Grade level: K–3.

Chrysanthemum
written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes
32 pp. Greenwillow Review 9/91
Young mouse Chrysanthemum loves her name — until she starts school and finds the teasing of her peers unbearable. Then the beloved music teacher, Mrs. Delphinium Twinkle, announces that she plans to name her baby Chrysanthemum, and suddenly everyone wants to be named after a flower. Another very engaging female protagonist from Henkes. Grade level: K–3.

Starting School
written by Johanna Hurwitz, illustrated by Karen Dugan
102 pp. Morrow Review 9/98
The twin brothers of Lucas Cott (of the Class Clown series) are put in separate kindergartens in the same school. Marcus and Marius decide to switch places to settle an argument about who has the better teacher, but on the same day, their teachers decide to switch places to settle their own argument. This is irony at its humorous best for young readers, who will delight in anticipating the inevitable chaos. Grade level: K–3.

Running the Road to ABC
by Denize Lauture, illustrated by Reynold Ruffins
32 pp. Simon Review 5/96
Six children run “on the Road to ABC” to beat the rising sun to their school. Though there is little story, the rich lyrical language used by Lauture, a Haitian poet, creates a strong sense of place, while imagery and patterns of text build tension. Warmly detailed gouache paintings propel the reader to the next page in this optimistic glimpse of Haitian children working for a brighter future. Grade level: K–3.

Once upon an Ordinary School Day
by Colin McNaughton, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura
32 pp. Farrar Review 3/05
In this parable of the awakening imagination, an “ordinary boy woke from his ordinary dreams . . . had an ordinary pee . . . and ate his ordinary breakfast.” At school a colorful new teacher demands that the class listen to music and record what they imagine. While the art bursts into joyful color, the boy begins to write; “and he was lost, lost in . . . the storytelling game. And it was extraordinary.” Grade level: K–3.

Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity
written and illustrated by Mo Willems
48 pp. Hyperion Review 11/07
When Trixie (older and more verbal than in Knuffle Bunny) spots preschool classmate Sonja with a Knuffle Bunny look-alike, the girls fight, and the bunnies are confiscated. Their teacher reunites each girl with her toy . . . or so it seems. Cartoon-style characters are set against black-and-white photographs of an urban neighborhood. Willems’s page design and animation-inspired panel illustrations are visually dynamic. Grade level: Preschool.

Robin Smith on school stories.

The post More of Robin Smith’s Favorite School Stories appeared first on The Horn Book.

Each year, right before school starts, I organize my classroom library, pulling out the chapter books I like to read to the class during the year and finding the picture books I use during the crucial first weeks when my students and I are settling in. What kinds of books am I drawn to? My favorites are books about school. You would think I would be sick of them, especially since some are schlocky and idealistic — impossible to live up to — but you would be wrong. Books about school give me some common ground with my class to talk about my expectations for the year. Though fictional, the teachers in these books inform my teaching every day.

Most books about kids are books about school. That makes sense. Unless they’re homeschooled, most children spend a significant chunk of their waking hours in school. They wait in line, master the vocabulary of lockers and cubbies and boys’ rooms and girls’ rooms, and learn to live in a world where paid adults are in charge. These paid adults become very important — a bad teacher means a bad year, and a beloved teacher can make school a warm second home.

I fall in love with the good teachers in books (and, really, there are few bad teachers in books for young elementary students), especially when I share their stories aloud with my students. From wise Miss Mason in The Hundred Dresses to Gloria Houston’s unattainably sweet role model in My Great-Aunt Arizona to the three marvelous preschool teachers in Rebecca Caudill’s Did You Carry the Flag Today, Charley?, they are all teachers I wish I could be. I often ask myself (thinking of Esmé Raji Codell’s Sahara Special), “What would Miss Pointy do?”

Kirkpatrick Hill’s Miss Agnes poured me a cup of tea and captured my imagination eight years ago. In The Year of Miss Agnes, set in post-WWII rural Alaska, Miss Agnes teaches a group of kids in a one-room schoolhouse. The children have run off a long line of inexperienced and culturally insensitive teachers and are in danger of losing their school forever when she arrives. Miss Agnes might have a British accent and she might wear pants, but she loves children and is up to the challenge of this little school on the brink. Dumping the out-of-date readers and textbooks, she cleans out the classroom with a firm and no-nonsense hand and gets down to the business of teaching. Every year, I steal ideas from this teacher who only exists on paper. This year, I created personal spelling dictionaries for each student, imagining Miss Agnes giving me the nod. I have added historical timelines to my classroom, and I always have a map or globe handy, just as she does. Urban Nashville is far from rural Alaska, but my new readers love it when I write personal stories to them (as Miss Agnes does when she creates little books for her students). And whenever I get discouraged, I think of Miss Agnes, staying past her contracted time to be with the students who love her. I envy Miss Agnes. Her one-room schoolhouse students don’t have to move on to a new teacher at the end of the year. I like to imagine her teaching that same group — and then their children — for years to come.

This year, a new teacher joined the pantheon of beloved teachers who populate my own personal Mount Olympus: Miss D., from Andrea Cheng’s Where the Steps Were. She teaches in an old inner-city school that is about to be shut down. She listens to her children, who face a variety of struggles, while the clock keeps ticking closer to the end of the year and the end of their community. Though Miss D. reveals some of her personal struggles to her students, the students are the center of her school life, and they know it. Miss D. loves poetry and stories and introduces her children to literature, from Stone Soup and A Chair for My Mother to Langston Hughes’s “Dreams” and “Merry-Go-Round” and Eloise Greenfield’s “Harriet Tubman.” Ding! I rededicate myself to morning poetry reading when I see my own students seek out and react to the poems Miss D. references. Like Miss Agnes’s children, Miss D.’s third graders form a bond with one another that will endure well past the demolition of their school, and my students bonded with them, too. They wanted to count change, make scratch paintings, and cook school soup the way those kids did. And, at the end of the year, they wanted me to read those poems, one more time.

Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine is another new character on the scene. She is undoubtedly the star of her series, but I am weirdly drawn to her teacher Mr. D’Matz and principal Mrs. Rice, who spend their days with this active, impulsive third grader. Mr. D’Matz respects Clementine’s need for space without allowing her to fall through the cracks. In the latest series entry, Clementine’s Letter, he has ingeniously worked out secret signals with Clementine so he doesn’t need to embarrass her in front of the whole class. (I think I will adopt his tugging-on-an-ear gesture that means “Time to Be Listening.”) Clementine is the kind of student some teachers would dread, but when Clementine sees herself through Mr. D’Matz’s eyes, she likes what she sees and wants to make him proud. I like that image a lot.

The only problem with school stories is that there are just so darn many of them. The ones I remember best are the ones I share with my students. But there are so many more — Andrew Clements’s Frindle, The Jacket, The School Story, The Janitor’s Boy, and The Landry News, plus his Jake Drake books; Susie Morgenstern’s hilarious and moving A Book of Coupons and It Happened at School (not to mention her older, wonderful Secret Letters from 0 to 10). I allow my eye to wander over to my current stack of books to read. Half are about school. I wonder which ones will sneak into my brain the way that Bel Kaufman’s Up the Down Staircase, Pat Conroy’s The Water Is Wide, and Sylvia Ashton-Warner’s Teacher did so many years ago, back when I was trying to decide what I would do with my life.

More of Robin Smith’s favorite school stories

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